Muriel Rukeyser Quotes

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?The world would split open.

No one wants to read poetry. You have to make it impossible for them to put the poem down—impossible for them to stop reading it, word after word. You have to keep them from closing the book.

Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.

As we live our truths, we will communicate across all barriers, speaking for the sources of peace. Peace that is not lack of war, but fierce and positive.

However confused the scene of our life appears, however torn we may be who now do face that scene, it can be faced, and we can go on to be whole.

If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger.

I think there is choice possible to us at any moment, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice, and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who talk about sacrifice.

American poetry has been part of a culture in conflict....We are a people tending toward democracy at the level of hope; at another level, the economy of the nation, the empire of business within the republic, both include in their basic premise the idea of perpetual warfare

I hear the singing of the lives of women. They clear mystery, the offering, and pride.